tree

apparently, in Celtic astrology your personality is not determined by the rotation of heavenly bodies, but what tree you were born under. my November 9 birthdate places me under the walnut tree:

"People born under this tree are unusual and full of contrasts. They have aggressive personalities and tend to be self-centred, but they are also noble and have high ideals. These folks are extremely ambitious and highly skilled at getting what they want. It's impossible to guess how they will react in any situation - they are always surprising. Once they make up their mind though, they are relentless in their goal (and it's impossible to change their minds).

"They are not always liked by everyone, but they are always admired by everyone. In love, they are very passionate and jealous. They will make no compromises for their partner - they will only stay with someone who appreciates them the way they are and lets them get their way all the time."

that doesn't describe me at all! everyone has their shell... inside, i am just a lost, vulnerable little girl, seeking love and approval, who likes animals and helping people.

</sarcasm>

good morning! at the sound of the tone, the time will be 6.30 am, and i will have officially been awake for 24 solid hours.

the upside is that i caught the sunrise, and it was beautiful.

SimilarMinds.com Compatibility Test

Your match with Mary T. you are 81% similar you are 76% complimentary

How Compatible are You with me?

Q: what do 5 million battered women have in common? A: they just don't fucking listen!

indeed. add to this appalling number one Joumana Kidd, wife of NJ Nets player Jason Kidd, who was treated to a proper Boston welcome Monday night at the Eastern Conference finals. Kidd complains that he felt his family was "in jeopardy". gee, i wonder if he feels that way while he smacks his wife up in front of the kids.

seems that Joumana (most likely under threat of another ass-whooping) has taken the Tammy Wynette route, following up with an article in today's NY Post in which she refers to the Boston crowd as "ignorant and crude".

no ma'am, i believe YOU are the ignorant one. damned ignorant, in fact. perhaps you would be interested in these. enlightening, eh?

nothing gets my blood boiling faster than domestic violence. nothing is more pussy than laying your hands on someone you claim to "love"-- except maybe for grade A morons like Joumana Kidd who keep putting up with it. until these clueless bints stop deluding themselves with the notion that wife-beaters just magically change somehow, and publicly maintain that "he said he was sorry, so that makes everything okay", the cycle will continue and continue.

and of course if, or when he finally ends up killing her, all we'll hear is she was such a wonderful mother. last i checked, good mothers did not keep themselves in situations where they or their children could wind up orphaned or dead.

i'm not surprised, Mrs. Kidd, if much of Beantown would share my sentiments. we don't exactly specialize in suffering fools-- if you can't handle that, any Bostonian would be happy to direct you to the Blue Line (just keep your ears open for "airport" and proceed from there).

i watched Ali, which at first i wasn't really interested in, since long, heavy bio-pics aren't really my thing. but i actually liked it very much. good cinematography, no bullshit.

i also saw The Gift, a small film that was out last year and all my friends raved about... well, i can't say i found it that extraordinary. not that it wasn't good. it was very good-- fabulous acting, suspense, Katie Holmes naked-- but i just didn't "like" it. i think it was Mary T. who said, "every now and then you see something that just makes you want to wash your eyes." on the whole it just left me with a disturbed, creeped out feeling.

and the one thing that irritated me the most was that nobody seemed to be able to pick up the phone and call the cops-- aside from the fact that the small-town police were predictably inept and corrupt. like when the guy had his father tied up and was trying to set him on fire-- the first thing they do is call the freekin' psychic?

live wacky brit

Pete puts his hands where we can see them.

Chandra Levy's Death Ruled A Homicide. now, that's just ridiculous. what are these coroners smoking? it's perfectly obvious that she tied herself up with her leggings, drove herself to a remote park and cut off her own head. get a clue.

more about zits, and a good read

remember when i had a zit in my ear? i just couldn't seem to wrap my mind around that, and i was wondering exactly how common this particular phenomenon is, so i typed "ear zit" into Google and let it run.

subsequently, i learned that (a)ear zits are far less unusual than i previously thought and (b)everyone pretty much agrees it's not a pleasant subject; but more importantly, i stumbled upon Sarah Hayllar's three page dissertation on the study and categorization of every manifestation of acne vulgaris you could possibly encounter. with chilling accuracy, she describes everything from the "ghost zit" to the "strap hanger zit". (i thought i was the only one who got strap hanger zits!)

anyway, Sarah's journal is quite prolific, and i like her style, so i will keep reading.

i found this site that lets you browse private islands for sale. i had no idea there were so many islands currently on the market, but there seems to be enough possibilities to suit every taste, comfort level and price range. i found my paradise: 8700 acres 20 miles from the Barrier Reef-- $1.2 million. sweet.

$2.5 million for 53 acres in the middle of a freezing lake? rip-off. but that's California for you. they're destined for the bottom of the Pacific, and they know it.

happy memorial day eve

i watched a program this morning called "The Guards of Buckingham Palace", about the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment and how they are selected, trained, etc. in particular, it followed a group of young men from various backgrounds, some of which had never even been near a horse before, and their progress towards becoming the most famous guards in the world. i did find it deeply fascinating, and did my best to concentrate, despite the fact that all those lovely British accents were making me want to touch myself.

for starters, only the tallest and best looking British soldiers are chosen for the Mounted Regiment (Matt, are you reading this?...;-)). it mentioned how much they earned per year, and of course now i can't remember for my life how much it was, but it seemed like a ridiculously low amount for all the rigorous ceremonial and operative duties they are responsible for performing. did you know that it takes them four hours just to clean their ceremonial boots? yes ma'am, they take wax and a blowtorch to those bastards. furthermore, because they have no stirrups, they must mount their horses in such a way to require upper-body strength that i will never begin to fathom, much less possess myself.

so, yeah-- i give it up for those cats. (any Mounted Regiment soldiers reading this? e-mail, baby, e-mail. let's you and me get weird.)

i also watched a few minutes of "Forrest Gump" dubbed in Spanish. extremely amusing.

My Sexual Encounters 1.0. if you buy this, i will never talk to you again. although i do admit that using Excel for this sort of thing is a pain in the ass, and spreadsheets are cumbersome. there has to be a better way.

5pm: awoke to the mysterious subterranean sound of water pouring from a ceiling vent onto the bathroom floor. user error concerning the plumbing upstairs. fabulous. i set a mixing bowl down and went along my merry way.

let me be blunt: it's been a miserable week, and i simply spared everyone the moaning.

an open letter to the woman who had our telephone number before us:

Madam:

Girl, you are in some serious hot water. People are looking for your ass. You need to pick up the phone and make a few calls NOW. Are you aware that I am receiving calls from the U.S. Navy? Why the fuck do I have the U.S. Navy calling my home? Like I need that. Are you by chance AWOL?

The Navy is just the latest development. Not only do I have a bank, a credit union and some timeshare calling my house looking for you, but various individuals suggesting they may be your friends! (or former friends, perhaps?)

Perhaps your phone number happens to be just one digit removed from mine. In the case of such hapless administrative circumstance, please disregard this letter. However, I am not so inclined to believe that our own formidible Navy would be so inept as to repeatedly misdial a single particular telephone number.

I've no other recourse but to assume that you are in serious debt, AWOL, being held against your will, missing, dead, possibly all of the above, or otherwise derelict or engaging in activities of a subversive nature. I have been thoroughly inconvenienced by your failure to effectively regulate your own personal affairs. We are simple people and we do not wish to be involved in such wretchedness. In the case that you are separated from loved ones, I urge you to re-establish contact at once. At least give them your new phone number. If you don't want your creditors to find you, please at least make it known that you no longer live here.

In any event, your immediate attention to this matter is requested. Thank you for your consideration.

Regards.

v2.0

i went away and had a think about the new layout. i wasn't sure if i liked it. i've decided now that it suits my personality-- everything lined up neatly in little compartments.

the design is based on Firda's original template from CSS Colouring Book, adapted by Frederic De Vries for browser compatibility. no archives or bio up yet; i'm going to re-do them.

in other news, i'm going nuts. i haven't slept in two days. i can't sleep, if i may clarify. it hasn't been that bad up until about four hours ago. it was just around then that things started to unravel.

the two of us are night people. even when we were working 8am gigs, we were still night people. i think this is where a large part of my insomnia takes root. my boyfriend is lucky; he has a cool third shift gig. if i could find something like that i'd take it in a heartbeat. lately, however, i'm beginning to think i'm lucky to have a job at all in this foul Year of Our Lord.

i don't know where the rest of it comes from. probably anxiety, and a bit of paranoia. what do i have to be anxious about? well, frankly, nothing. but i still spend endless minutes of the day worrying about tiny details like, what if i die alone, and ants eat my face?

i'm terrified of Mucormycosis. and Spontaneous Human Combustion-- that's scary.

i lose track of time when i don't sleep. i get disoriented. 4pm is no different from 4am. on my days off i use showers to mark the days. as in-- i last showered twelve hours ago. i think my neighbors think i'm a heroin addict. just as they arrive home from work in the twilight, i'm stumbling out the door, bleary-eyed, pale, disheveled, yawning, on my way to check the mail.

today i realized we were out of soda, and i remembered that there was a 12-pack of Mountain Dew in my truck. i was wearing track pants and a skinny camisole and didn't want to go outside quite like that, so i wrapped up in this fleecy blue bathrobe, with polar bears on it, that i sometimes wear around the house when it's chilly. my boyfriend said, "you can't go out like that!" i did anyway. i know the neighbors probably saw me through their ground floor windows. i didn't really care, but i'm probably no fresh daisy at this point. so that's another thing i can worry about, i guess: what do the neighbors think of us?

zits are beauty marks

i have a zit in my ear. not only is this very gross, but the proximity of said zit is at such an angle that makes it impossible to see it, pick it or fiddle around with it. so, it's driving me nuts. i keep attacking it with a q-tip and alcohol. no change yet.

remember when you were around 19 or 20, and your face was spotty, and it was like, what the fuck? wasn't i supposed to grow out of this? because you'd just spent the last five years waiting to grow out of it. so there you are getting ready to go out, and it's your turn to use the little lighted mirror! so there you are dusting layer upon layer of glitter powder over the little cluster of spots on your cheek. now you just have sparkly zits. so you turn to your friend and ask, "can i borrow some of that super- dermablend- ultra- coverage- sweatproof- smudgeproof- industrial- Playboy- photo- shoot- quality- concealer you have?" or, alternately, "if i glue little rhinestones in a flower pattern right here on my cheek, can you still see my spots?" or, "this club is dark, right?"

and all this time, even now, the wise elder people are still telling you, "you'll grow out of it." and that's what they said when you were thirteen, fifteen, eighteen.

i'm hereby issuing a public service announcement. i think it would be better to just bust out the truth here. you never grow out of it. they're lying to you.

don't misunderstand me-- it gets better. think about it; by the time you're 70, you'll have far more important things to worry about than the occasional break-out.

nowadays i average about 1 pimple per month. amazing, considering my chronic insomnia, my preference for caffeine over pure water and generally transient lifestyle. depending on how perfect i have to look for any occasion, it's usually on my chin. in this case, it's in my freakin ear. if i'm very stressed out, i get three or four little tiny zits in a group on my chin.

i feel that zits are misrepresented in our culture. there are so many of them, yet they are so supressed. of course, you could say the same about Staphylococcus bacteria, but... if you get a staph infection, nobody tries to make you feel bad about it. nobody says, "you know, you should really do something about that staph infection-- you've got such a pretty face." also, you can prevent staph infections far more easily than you can acne. maybe people should just come out with their zits and everything and get over it.

let me sum up: they're not going away; it's all a lie; let's get used to it; i love you anyway.

america, land of spiced meat wands

In America, caste is not easily determined by clothing. Is that lip-pierced woman with dreadlocks, dirty leather jacket and Misfits t-shirt a street person or a college student?

neither-- it's just me. except i took the lip ring out long ago... it was just so 1996. and as for the dreadlocks-- well, they're not intentional; i just can't be bothered to comb my hair every single day.

America’s coasts are home to its most extreme characters. The common perception is that the East Coast is dirty, crowded and populated with rude, violent psychopaths, while the West Coast is all sunny beachfront property peopled with drug-addled hippies and actors. While this is all true, it’s hardly an accurate portrayal of the lifestyle of the remainder of the American population.

learn more about America in "One Nation, Extra Cheese: The Foreigner's Guide to America".

obviously, the metafilter community cares about kids

the thing about Metafilter is that it can be richly enjoyable for about three days in a row, and then at the end of that three days something comes along to remind you just how much it resembles high school.

it seems that on Metafilter, a "troll" is defined by anyone who posts something that disagrees with the collective mindset. never mind how rational or thoughtful the post may be; if it doesn't match everyone else's opinion, it's a "troll".

take for instance this thread regarding an article on the possibility of HIV+ men fathering children. this was "tiny pea"'s accompanying comment:

Thanks to a breakthrough in medical technology allowing HIV-infected semen to be purified of the virus, thousands of men will now be able to father children whose high-school graduations they'll never live to see. Is there no limit to human vanity?

i for one thought this comment was fairly innocuous. fuck, if i was HIV+, i would think the last thing on my mind would be whether or not i should bring a child into the equasion. anyone who lost a parent at a young age can tell you it wasn't fun for anybody. of course, there are no guarantees when it comes to that sort of thing even if you don't have HIV; but i've also known people who spent their formative years watching one of their parents waste away with cancer or some other disease. it didn't do them any good, to say the least. let's not even start on the economic factors involved.

but oh, the hoopla this "earth to reality-- come in reality" post generated among the sheeple! at first, most of them were just understandable gut reactions: I don't get it. What's vane about wanting to become a father? What's vane about giving your wife a child, a legacy to live on after your own passing, if that even occurs due to HIV? (personally, i think the question should be, why is it so important that i have a "legacy" to live on after my passing? am i *really* all that special?) to which tiny pea eloquently responded:

It's vanity, because if these people could put aside their irrational desire to erect a monument to themselves through genetic continuity, then they could adopt a healthy child who desperately needs a family, which bears no risk of infecting either the inseminated woman or the kid with an incurable disease. It's pure vanity. (i hear that, tiny pea! but you know the thing about adoption-- the kid might not be white, god forbid, or it might be older, or have nasty emotional or developmental problems. should we really expect decent, loving American families to have to deal with these gross inconveniences? sarcasm: off)

that's when the replies became disturbing. first, the t-word was thrown in. then comes this:

I might suggest you use more care in composing posts here. It sounds awfully like what you're saying is it's ridiculous that people with HIV reproduce, as they're all going to die. That would make you sound rather like an asshole, and you wouldn't want that.

WTF? not only does that sound vaguely like a threat, it's probably the most idiotic suggestion i've ever seen posted to a public forum. i thought Metafilter was the "community blog". well, if you're going to have anything devoted to "community", you most likely are going to have to accept that some people in this community have a different opinion than you do, and they have every right to express it in a reasonable manner. "use more care in composing posts here"?? you mean censor herself, right?

i don't think tiny pea's posts were imflammatory or irrational or troll-like in any way. she had a legitimate opinion and a fairly rational, dare i say DIFFERENT arguement to back it up. had she busted out with, "fuck you all nazis rule cocksuckers" or something, then yeah, get the hell out of here, troll. (Metafilter doesn't know how lucky they are. on many boards, that's what you get daily.)

and then, we have the people who just don't get it:

Wotta truckload of crap, tiny pea. Kindly take your prejudices elsewhere -- no matter how noble adoption is, the vast majority of people on Earth, in America, in your hometown, here on Metafilter, reproduce naturally.

well excuse the fuck out of me! how the fuck could anything t.p. said be construed as "prejudiced"? because she simply suggested that people with fatal diseases should think ahead? use their beans? maybe even give a fuck about the pwecious childwen? get on out of there and stop bothering these folks, tiny pea... after all, their shit doesn't stink because people here on Metafilter reproduce naturally.

community weblog, my ass.

and that stupid bitch* said you only had a 30% chance

six billion freakin people currently on this planet-- that's six times 1000 million-- six billion people who are, for all intents and purposes, the same-- all six billion of them at once competing for the same limited resources.

fuck it. i just can't help myself. congratulations Bjork.

i have seen the future, and what it needs is more people who can write songs like this.

*=Sylvia Ann "I Spit on Feminism's Grave" Hewlett

random gratuitous Creed bashing

so, here's what happened: lead singer for Creed wakes up and realizes with crushing certainty that his band does indeed suck out loud; cancels the rest of the tour, disbands. okay, that isn't really how it happened, but we wish it was.

so what's really going on? who cares? the world can only benefit.

i just watched this thing called Frontier House. simple "reality tv" formula: three American families left to their own devices as they experience life as it would have been on a homestead in the 1880's; responsible for growing their own food, raising their own livestock and securing enough firewood, hay and sustenance to survive the winter.

well, they were mostly useless twats. i mean, in the end they all got over themselves just enough to pull it together and churn some butter and chop some wood and build fences-- but the whining involved! they must have culled the participants off of some Prozac mailing list or something. every one of them had some sort of candy-ass ego disorder to work through. one couple had all of this bullshit drama going on in their marriage ("honey, our marriage is falling apart. let's go on television." the fuck?!?), and they never... shut... up... about it. every single chore or necessary function turned into some sort of power struggle between them. they bickered 24/7. they were pathetic.

then there was this uber-rich family from Malibu who seriously thought they were on some sort of exotic holiday. they were like the Howells on Gilligan's Island. they actually snuck in a box spring mattress to sleep on while everyone else was supposed to make their own beds from rope. seriously, they had no clue. the best part was when they recieved their final "assessment" from the historical experts who judged whether or not each family would survive the winter-- their assessment was basically, "you'd be dead by now."

i would assume the real pioneers had better things to do than worry about posturepedics and have emotional crises and get in touch with their "inner selves". it just goes to show how you can take the person out of the twentieth century, but you can't take the twentieth century out of the person.